http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4719651

Developments need to be based on partnerships
Without government and communities working together, even the best-intentioned projects can do more harm than good

November 19, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

NATIONAL attention remains fixed on the unlovely aftermath of Polokwane and the new political party, Congress of the People (Cope).

At times like this, we often forget the ordinary people who keep the country going, and in whose name most of the major battles continue to be fought.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4650172

Opinion
City needs transparency when dealing with poor
Report recommends greater consultation with communities in need of housing

October 08, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

The report on housing in Durban by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (Cohre) is a watershed movement for this city. The report is the culmination of almost three years of work by an international team of experts and is the first comprehensive analysis of post-apartheid housing policy and practice in the city.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4627067

Opinion
Careless council moves have led to shack fires
The adoption of the Slums Clearance Programme in 2001 has denied provision of basic services to our shackland dwellers

September 24, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

Little more than a week ago, almost the entire Foreman Road shack settlement in Clare Estate burnt down, leaving thousands destitute. The next morning residents found a body in the ashes. There had also been a devastating fire in the same settlement last year. The photographs of the morning after are apocalyptic.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4579146

Opinion
The social value of land must come first

August 27, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

There has been considerable discussion after the announcement that the eThekwini Municipality is considering expropriating land from Tongaat-Hulett to finally move ahead with the long promised Cornubia development.

We all know that in Durban, as in cities around the country, the question of housing is the biggest source of conflict between poor people's organisations and the state.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4532321

Opinion
Human rights are just words to poor people

July 30, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

The new South Africa was founded on a commitment to human rights.

Neither of the contesting nationalisms of the National Party and the African National Congress had built their politics around human rights before 1994, but a human rights centred deal was one that everyone could live with.

In a human rights culture and in a human rights legal system everyone matters. Children, prisoners, foreigners, the poor, sex workers - everyone.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4462144

Testimony to the power of ordinary people

June 19, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

These days even a possible American president, Barack Obama, is talking about bottom-up development.

Indeed his campaign for the democratic nomination often eschewed corporate support in favour of a grass-roots-up campaign. The fact that he was able to win the Democratic nomination on the back of the work of ordinary people in community organisations is testament to the power of ordinary people.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4436942

Government needs to connect with citizens

June 04, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

The print and electronic media have had - and continue to have - an overwhelming amount of news and analysis around the crisis of xenophobia that has gripped our country.

Surely, this is justifiable when you have figures of between 50 000 and 100 000 people who have been displaced and when such a complex occurrence has such far-reaching implications for a country like South Africa.

The pogroms against foreign-born people have, as many commentators have noted, smashed the idea that South Africa is somehow an exceptional country.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4379940

April 30, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

Robert Mugabe successfully stole elections in Zimbabwe in 2000, 2002 and 2005.

Each time he was assisted by the complicity of the South African government and various other forces. It seems clear that the tyrant's fourth attempt to steal an election will not go so smoothly. Mugabe is losing the support of the Zimbabwean elite that he was previously able to buy off with plunder from his "land reform programme" and his part in the militarised rape of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4356190

The solution is not to 'kill the bastards'

April 16, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

South Africans are angry. Interest rates are skyrocketing, escalating food prices are making existence impossible for many, the housing crisis is exploding, our president seems to be giving tacit assent to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's attempt to steal an election, and Eskom is threatening a massive hike in the price of electricity.

Crime, for so long the national obsession, is now merely the "cherry on top".

But how safe can civilians feel when, over the weekend, armed robbers made off with documents from the Johannesburg High Court building?